Low temperature impact toughness and fracture mechanism of cast QT400-18L ductile iron with different Ni additions

Different contents of Ni (0.3wt.% to 1.2wt.%) were added to the QT400-18L ductile iron to investigate the effect of Ni addition on the impact toughness of cast ductile irons at low temperatures. The impact toughnesses of the samples at room and low temperatures were tested. The microstructures and fractographs were observed. Results show that with the increase of Ni addition there is a general trend of refinement of the ferrite matrix while the nodule density shows no obvious change. When the Ni content is 0.7wt.%, the matrix structure is the refined ferrite with a very small fraction (about 2%) of pearlite near the eutectic cell boundaries. When the Ni content is further increased, the fraction of pearlite increases significantly and reaches more than 5% when 1.2wt.% Ni is added. The impact toughness at room temperature increases as the content of Ni increases from 0.3 wt.% to 0.7 wt.%, but decreases as the Ni content further increases to 1.2wt.% due to the increase of pearlite fraction. The maximum value of the impact work is 18.5 J at room temperature with 0.7wt.% Ni addition. The average value of the impact work is still more than 13 J even at -30 degrees C. In addition, the fracture mechanism changes from ductile manner to brittleness as the testing temperature decreases from 20 degrees C to -60 degrees C.